Love In Three Parts
by eosdawnaurora
Summary: Falling in love from beginning to end. Pure fluff. Written for the kakasaku Anonymous Exchange on LJ for xwishingagainx.
1. Flutter

Flutter

XOXOXOXOXOX

If the feeling had been any more subtle, Sakura would have blamed it on the bad camp food. It was her turn to cook, always a disaster even when she was paying attention - which she wasn't; she was much, much too distracted to think about cooking.

She wondered if he was mad at her for catching him in the act, mask down and delicately scraping the white stubble off his chin. She'd seen him down there washing up by the little stream at the bottom of the flat hill where they'd set up, as the others were still crawling out of their bedrolls.

Sneaking up on him was always something she'd considered impossible; Kakashi would have been less embarrassed perhaps, if his reaction to her eyes meeting his own then, had not been to cut a neat slice into his cheek.

Sakura healed him before he managed to say a word; now there was this feeling in her gut that wouldn't dissipate. Not a bad feeling, but it took her a long time to recognize it for what it was.

They were on the move now, and every time he glanced her way, the butterflies in her stomach did a little dance. The four shinobi leapt from branch to branch in formation just like they had so many other times, until Sakura tripped and fell from a ridiculous height.

Kakashi caught her by the back of her belt, hauling her back up into the canopy like a stunned gazelle.

"You alright?" he asked, and she realized that she'd never been nervous about him putting his hand on her body before.

"Yeah, I don't know what happened." The butterflies were already back in force, and she could feel sweat prickling her hairline.

"Okay, but if it happens again, we're stopping," he said.

It wasn't going to happen again, and she was careful to see that it didn't. The butterflies stayed, however. 


	2. Tickle

Tickle

XOXOXOXOXOX

"Did we really just get kicked out of a meeting?" said Sakura, aghast and staring back at the door to Tsunade's office.

"I think _you_ got _us_ kicked out of a meeting." Kakashi's eye was narrowed at her.

She made an unpleasant face at him, and poked him in the middle of the chest. "Why the hell were you tickling my ankle with your toes under the table then? Your legs are so much longer, how am I supposed to fight back?"

Kakashi grabbed her hand and pushed it back down by her side. "A good ninja would find a way."

"Don't give me that bullshit! You knew that presentation was important." And she was going to have to apologize to Tsunade as well as the Suna Village ambassador.

"I wasn't expecting you to jump on the table," he said, loud and exasperated.

"What the hell did you expect? For me to bite my lip and blush?"

He looked flustered. "Maybe that might have been in the range whereabouts of expected reactions from a woman who has been mercilessly flirting with me for the past three months."

Kakashi did have a point, but it wasn't like she was the only one doing it. He was usually a bit more subtle than this. "Not in a meeting!"

"For some reason, I seem to remember you slipping a note in my pocket while you were "passing through" the briefing room on Tuesday."

"I _was_ just passing through. I was on my way to the forensics lab. And then you came to lunch with me later - I didn't see you complaining when I paid."

"Come to think of it, that doesn't sound like a bad idea."

"What?"

"Lunch. I'll pay this time. By the time we get back, Shizune will have worked things out, and we won't be hungry." Kakashi explained.

Sakura didn't want to let him smooth talk his way out of this, but her stomach growled at his mere mention of lunch. "You are changing the subject, Sensei."

The corner of his eye creased as he smiled at her. "Would you prefer to argue?"

She gave him her best 'I-could-hurt-you-but-then-I'd-have-to-put-you-back-together' smile. "No, of course not." This was the first time he'd offered to pay after all.


	3. Young And In Love

Young and in Love

XOXOXOXOXOX

Kakashi decided that this was an interesting predicament: Haruno Sakura was asleep in his lap.

His former student was asleep in his lap.

Asleep in his lap was a young woman of his acquaintance, who he had watched grow into great power and a formidable reputation as a healer and a fighter. And he could see down her shirt.

Sakura - a really, very attractive woman, who also happened to be his friend and comrade - was passed out like a kid who had played too hard at a festival, right on top of him and it was giving him dirty, filthy thoughts about ravishing her.

The woman he wanted to spend the rest of his useless life with, was using his right leg for a pillow.

No, it didn't really make much difference how he twisted his mind around it, he was completely taken with her.

Kakashi let his fingers drift across the fall of pink hair draped over one of his thighs. A small smile still ghosted across her lips every now and then. The half-smile was how he knew she was really asleep. If he moved his leg, at all she'd rouse and the moment would be lost.

His back was pressed into the rough bark of a large camphor tree, the ground beneath a soft mat of green moss and dead leaves. He wasn't uncomfortable, his only concern was completing their high-risk courier mission and getting them back home. No, he just wanted her to be safe; that was all he cared about - and his feeling that way was rather unfair to both her and to his employers.

They were going to have to stop going on missions together.

"Kakashi?" He heard her say softly, almost a whisper.

"Mmhmm?" One moment she was asleep, the next those big green eyes were staring up at him.

"Will it always be like this?" Now she was looking up into the green branches over them, and the bits of sunlight that filtered down danced in her eyes.

"No," he said. How could anything ever be the same, now that he knew?

"Good. I don't like it when things are too quiet." Her small smile was contagious.

"It's good sometimes," he said, stroking her hair again.

"It is."

"We should go." Kakashi held back a sigh.

Sakura sighed for him. "I'm so comfortable though."

"Home and bed will be much more pleasant, I assure you," he said, and she sat up, allowing him to get his legs under him to stand.

"No, I really don't think so. Unless..." Sakura started to say, though she didn't continue.

"Unless what?"

"Unless you're in it with me," she said.


End file.
